


The Helping Hand Job

by brevityis



Category: Leverage
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Kink Negotiation, Light Bondage, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:14:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25435993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brevityis/pseuds/brevityis
Summary: Nate's all wound up about Sophie's new boyfriend, and Eliot just wants to sleep. Then a revelation on Nate's part leads Eliot to realize he could give them both a helping hand.~Shameless smut written as a prequel to Small Acts, though both stand alone. Sometimes Nate doesn't have to be in charge, even if he usually prefers it. This is how it starts.
Relationships: Nathan Ford/Eliot Spencer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	The Helping Hand Job

**Author's Note:**

> How the hell is this half as long as the longest thing I've ever written? And why are these two as a FWB ship so compelling to me? There may or may not be an immediate follow-up to this fic (shockingly not smut this time) in the works.
> 
> Many, many thanks to my beta and cheerleader [pushingcrazies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushingcrazies/pseuds/pushingcrazies). Any mistakes surviving the beta process are 100% my doing.

“A boyfriend?” Nate asked as Eliot opened the door to their room with a keycard.

“Yeah.” Eliot scanned the room for threats, checking the bathroom and the closet before setting his bag down on the rack in the closet. 

Nate was still talking. “A mark, you mean.” 

“Nah. Doesn’t sound like it.” Eliot shrugged, kicking his boots off and laying back on the hotel bed. The getaway from their latest con had him sharing this layover with Nate, and it was shaping up to be less fun than billed. It hadn’t been billed as that fun to begin with. 

“How could she have an actual boyfriend, though? With what she does?” Nate wasn’t drunk, but you could have fooled a lot of people on that front. Nearly thirty-six hours without sleep would do that to you. 

“With what _we_ do.” Eliot emphasized delicately, sighing and staring at the ceiling. He had a feeling Nate wasn’t going to let him sleep until he’d talked through whatever he’d been stewing about for the past who-knew-how-long. 

“Yeah, but we use our own _names_ ,” Nate stressed. “I mean, what does she see in this guy? He can’t _know_ her,” Nate gestured expansively, pacing around the tiny airport hotel room like a caged animal. 

“It’s hard for people in our line of work to find anyone who really knows us,” Eliot pointed out. Tiredly. He weighed the benefits of knocking Nate out against the possibility of actually leaving their mastermind with some brain damage. Not worth it. Yet.

“Not that hard. I know you. You know me. We know Sophie. And Parker, and Hardison.” 

“So what are you suggesting, that we should all sleep together?” Maybe if he indulged Nate a little, he’d get it out of his system. Taking things to the far-out conclusion might make him get to the point faster. 

Nate flinched as though he’d been struck. “No, of course not! Parker and Hardison are like my ch-” Nate’s voice stuck in his throat, and he moved to the shitty little minibar to grab a low, thick glass. Eliot got it. The subject of kids always did hit close to home for Nate. 

Still, Eliot propped himself up on his elbows. “I notice I wasn’t on that little no-go list of yours.” And wasn’t that curious. “Woulda thought a Catholic boy like you would be against man lying with man, and all that.” 

Nate seemed to seize on the distraction. Empty glass still in hand, he turned around and pointed the rim at Eliot. “Ah see, now that’s where you’re wrong. _Lapsed_ Catholic. And I never was so big on that particular part of scripture.” Nate’s eyes were fever-bright, glinting with some of the manic nature Eliot saw too often on cons. 

“Oh no?” Things were getting interesting. Eliot sat up fully. “And why not?” 

“Well, first off, it’s from the King James Bible, you see, and everyone knows he only had the translators punch those bits up to get the church off his back about his lover. His gay. Male. Lover.” Nate was swinging that glass around in a way that made Eliot distinctly uncomfortable, mostly because he could just see what would happen the instant Nate lost his grip on it. Nate seemed to see it too, after a minute, and set it back on the bar with a click.

“Doesn’t the Pope have something to say about it, in Catholicism?” 

“Pope, eh.” Nate shrugged. “The Pope is only infallible when he speaks ex cathedra, or from the throne of Saint Peter, and there have only ever been two teachings declared ex cathedra. Both of which have to do with Mary, neither with homosexuality.” He drummed his fingers on the edge of the countertop. “Most of the prohibitions come from eclesiastical councils and they largely started with the exclusion of men who lay specifically with _boys_. Initially, canons against sodomy were all aimed at the priesthood anyway, they only broadened it to laymen in the middle ages. A priest I am not.” Nate crossed his arms in front of his chest and smirked at Eliot, before opening his mouth to continue, “And even if I were, there’s precedent for that, too. Pope Paul the Sixth was accused of being in a long-time homosexual relationship with a man.” 

Eliot found himself astounded, once again, at just how broad and deep Nate’s knowledge ran. You never knew when you were going to stumble onto a topic he knew everything about and felt like lecturing on. It almost made up for the times when he gave you a cryptic comment and walked away. 

Almost. 

But Nate was looking too smug, his eyes were too blue, and Eliot was missing his typical 90 minutes of sleep. Nate had to be even more exhausted, but he didn’t look close to dropping off anytime soon. So Eliot slid his feet off the side of the bed. 

Nate tipped his head slightly, clearly assessing the situation. “Does that make _you_ uncomfortable?” he pressed. “Knowing I’m not exactly the straight shooter you thought I was?” There was a flicker of concern in the depth of his eyes, and Eliot was pretty sure it wasn’t for Eliot’s well-being. No, that was the look of a man wondering for the barest instant if he was about to get punched. 

Eliot’s lips curved in a smile. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this yet or not, but I don’t think ‘straight shooter’ can be applied to anyone on this team. We’re all a bit crooked, in every respect.” Eliot wasn’t a hundred percent about Hardison, but he had a feeling. Sophie and Parker? Absolutely a little left of true, just like Eliot. Really, Nate was the one Eliot would have been holding out on to be straight. Should have figured. 

“Is that so?” Nate licked his lips. Eliot’s smile widened. ‘ _Gotcha._ ’ 

“Mm.” Eliot hummed, getting to his feet. It wasn’t a long walk, between him and Nate. He’d taken the bed by the door out of instinct and habit, and the minibar was just past the foot of it. Six steps, and he’d crossed the distance to put himself solidly inside Nate’s personal bubble. Nate swallowed hard, but didn’t move away. Eliot waited. 

“So, what? What is this?” Nate asked. Apparently, their mastermind wasn’t as good at reading Eliot as Eliot was at reading him, at least today. 

“ _This_ is I’d really like to get some sleep tonight, and you’re clearly too wired to do that. I’m offering, if you’re interested.” Eliot shrugged, looking up at Nate calmly. He could see Nate’s pulse against the pale skin of his throat. Nate was more nervous now than he had been when he was drinking; it kept them alive on jobs, but it also made situations like this more interesting. Gave Eliot a leg up he might not have had before. 

On a job, Nathan Ford could be as ruthless a son of a bitch as any Eliot had worked for, except for how Nate had a code of acceptable targets and consequences. Off it? Eliot didn’t fool himself. Nate was always gathering intel. On marks, his team, the world, any of it. But he was a lot easier to manage and control when he wasn’t literally calling the shots. 

“Offering what, exactly?” 

Nate just had to push it, didn’t he? “Sex, Nate. Sex. Simple physical sex, with someone who knows you. That work for you?” 

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Just wanted to make sure. In case there were feelings involved, you know.” Nate’s arms had come uncrossed, and he was fidgeting with the counter again, looking away. Eliot manfully resisted the urge to roll his eyes. 

“Man, I’m not one of your marks, and I’m not Sophie. I’m sure as hell not in love with you, or looking to be. But you clearly need to blow off steam, and talking isn’t getting you there quick enough. I happen to like sex, and like you well enough. Moreover, I _know_ you, so if you do something weird in the middle I’m hardly going to judge. We stop if you want to stop. Are you in, or not?” That came out a little sharp, a little rougher than usual. But sue him, he was tired, and really, really wanted Nate to be quiet for ten damn minutes in a row. Preferably 120 minutes in a row, but at this point he’d take ten if he could get it. And Nate didn’t seem like the type who’d jump on this unless Eliot laid it all out on the table.

“Not really one to beat around the bush, are you?” Nate licked his lips again, turned his face away for a second as sweat beaded at his temples. Eliot was about to give it up as a bad job when Nate turned back and looked Eliot over slowly. 

Eliot could practically feel the gears turning. He waited Nate out. 

“Yeah. Yeah, okay, I’m in.” Nate finally said, and that was all the cue Eliot had been waiting for. More than he normally needed, but you didn’t fuck your own crew without laying things out clearly ahead of time. “Is this going to be a blow jobs kind of thing or - mmph!” Eliot reveled in shutting Nate up for once, gripping Nate’s arms at the elbows, pressing him up against the narrow counter above the mini-fridge, and kissing him stupid. 

The kiss started out forceful, but as Nate relaxed into it Eliot loosened the pressure of his lips, turning it into a tease instead. From his grip on Nate’s arms, Eliot could feel Nate’s shoulders unknotting. Eliot smiled a little into the kiss, and drew back. “You good?” he asked, keeping his voice low to avoid agitating Nate into a frenzy again. 

“Yeah.” Nate already sounded less frenetic than he had before. 

‘ _Good._ ’

Eliot loosened his grip on Nate’s arms, turning the touch into a slow drag of palms instead. He slid them up and in until he could get them under the edges of Nate’s suit jacket and gently push it off Nate’s shoulders. He even took a step back to let Nate get the counter out of the small of his back and shrug the jacket off. Nate seemed pacified for now. 

When the jacket was off, Eliot took Nate’s wrist and walked them back towards his bed, the whole two steps between, and then a little more up the side by the wall. He’d probably wind up sleeping in a wet spot, but he’d slept in worse. Nate seemed less inclined to talk at the moment, instead following Eliot’s lead for a change. Still, Nate’s eyes were as watchful as ever. Eliot was pretty sure Nate was watching for the moment to take control again. Probably to do something stupid. Nate was stupid a lot when it was just the team. Eliot wasn’t really interested in giving him that moment.

“What this is, is whatever you want it to be. Within reason. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t showered in a day and a half and I don’t particularly feel like putting out a whole lot of effort tonight. So how about we get naked, get on the bed, and find our way from there, hm?” Eliot used what he thought of as his gentling-skittish-horses voice, something warm and low and quiet to avoid disturbing whatever relaxation Nate had managed to find already. “If we cum, we cum. If we don’t, we don’t.” 

Nate blinked at him. “Make out like teenagers, you mean.” 

Eliot shrugged. “I prefer to think of it as us getting handsy until we fall asleep, but if that floats your boat, sure.” 

“What if you fall asleep before I do?” The ‘and I still want to get off’ hung unspoken in the air. 

“Not going to happen. I have a vested interest in getting you soundly to dreamland.” Eliot responded, letting go of Nate’s wrist to begin unbuttoning his own shirt. 

“And what’s that?” Nate asked, though he instinctively mirrored Eliot’s gestures and began unbuttoning his own shirt. 

“Getting some sleep myself. I can’t sleep with you rustling around.” No point in sugar-coating it. Eliot shrugged out of his shirt and let it fall, before reaching to pull his undershirt off over his head. It hurt, a little, with the fresh bruises from yesterday’s job still on his skin, but nothing he couldn’t put aside for later if it got to be too much to enjoy. 

“Charming.” Nate tried to sound mocking, but the way his eyes fixated on Eliot’s biceps and chest said he was far from unaffected. Eliot’s lips curved up at the edges. 

“Just bein’ honest. That’s what you want, isn’t it? From your team?” Eliot asked. Nate’s eyes flicked back up to Eliot’s face, fast. Eliot knew he was treading dangerous ground here, but it was worth it for the fact that Nate actually took his shirt off, seeming to get with the program.

“Yeah. Like how I want you to be honest about if this is actually something you want to do.” Oh good grief, there was that Catholic guilt that Nate only seemed to show when it was most annoying, never when it was most warranted. Eliot didn’t bother to resist rolling his eyes this time. 

“Nate. If you think I’m doing this out of…no, honestly, I don’t even know what you think I’m doing this out of. I promise you, it’s pure self-interest on my part. I get to sleep, I get you to sleep, and I get to find out what you look like when I make you moan. Seems like a win-win for me here.” Eliot would like an orgasm, sure, but if Nate dropped off before that happened? Eliot was flexible. And now that the idea was in his head, he really was curious what Nate looked like lost in arousal. Just how far would Nate let him push? Nate certainly didn’t seem interested in taking the necessary steps to lead this little encounter. 

Unexpected, given Nate’s control issues, but hotter for it. 

“Fine. Okay.” Nate leaned in to put his hands on Eliot’s waist, and Eliot let him, even when Nate’s fingers found a bruise. Eliot reached out in turn, watching Nate’s face as he undid Nate’s belt and flies blindly. There were no red lights in Nate’s expression, just a quiet kind of intrigue. 

Why Nate had to wait until now to feel quiet, Eliot didn’t know, but it was flattering in a way. Nate knew, more than the rest of the team, what Eliot had done, what his past looked like. The trust Nate had to have in him to relax like this...

Eliot decided not to think about it too hard, instead stretching up to kiss Nate again even as he pushed Nate’s pants and underwear down over his hips. Nate’s breath was a little sour from a day of travel, but he’d clearly been making use of the mints Eliot saw him steal from the airport restaurant’s candy dish, because it was minty too. It was far from the worst kiss Eliot had ever had; Nate certainly knew how to use his lips. How often had Nate used kissing on a mark in his I.Y.S. days? It definitely made Eliot question Maggie’s statements about Nate’s skill in bed, even more than he had when she’d said them. Nate had a wealth of hidden talents, and Eliot was sure going to enjoy this one. He hummed contentedly into the kiss as Nate’s hands slid up his chest to grip his shoulders.

Nate pushed back, then, towards the bed, and Eliot had two choices. Let Nate urge him down, or - Eliot slid out a socked foot to hook behind Nate’s knee as Eliot twisted his upper body, and Nate was the one who found himself sprawled out on the duvet. 

Nate looked vaguely offended, a little startled, but Eliot didn’t give him time to sweat it. He crawled onto the bed instead, on top of Nate, even though his own jeans were still on and Nate’s shoes were, which meant Nate’s pants still connected his legs at the ankle. Nate made a face. Eliot smiled at him, pressing his foot down against Nate’s pants and bracing a forearm over one of Nate’s arms to keep him in place. 

“Now. Let’s talk about likes and dislikes. Anything I shouldn’t do or touch?” Eliot asked calmly from mere inches above Nate’s face. The curtain of his hair shrouded them both in privacy, and from this distance it was impossible to miss the fact that Nate’s eyes were dilated. Nate’s free hand came up to tug at Eliot’s hair. “If that’s meant to be a complaint, you’re doing it wrong. I take that as encouragement,” Eliot warned him, more than a little delighted to have Nate pinned under him and at his mercy for a change - even if Eliot was far more merciful than Nate ever was to his team. 

Nate pulled harder. Eliot just smiled.

Finally, Nate deigned to use his words. “Try not to cause an injury. Not big into pain.” The tight grip on Eliot’s hair proved that was a lie, at least when it came to _causing_ it. “Not interested in ass play today.” Eliot noted that ‘today’ and his eyebrow twitched upwards. Well, wasn’t that interesting? “Let’s not go too crazy.” 

That was a very non-specific list of ‘no’s, and a very short one at that. “I noticed you didn’t tell me not to hold you down.” Eliot shifted his weight against Nate’s arm, getting another sharp tug of his hair in response. 

“That I did not.” Nate was looking too alert again, and Eliot didn’t care for it. “If I want you to let go, you’ll let go.” Such serene fucking confidence, and Eliot wasn’t sure what it was in. In Eliot? Or in some nasty trick Nate had up his sleeve to gut-punch Eliot’s brain into recoiling if Nate deemed it necessary?

Knowing Nate, it might well be both.

“Glad we understand each other.” Eliot said instead, shifting his grip on Nate’s left arm to drag it up over Nate’s head instead. The bob of Nate’s throat caught Eliot’s eye, as did the way Nate licked his lips, but Nate didn’t utter a peep of protest, and didn’t loosen his grip in Eliot’s hair one iota. 

Eliot lowered his head to kiss Nate slowly, taking his time to learn what type of pressure and touch Nate liked best. Then he drifted away, layering biting kisses over Nate’s jawline. The stubble Nate had developed in the past day dragged at Eliot’s mouth, prickles of near-pain that felt delicious against his swollen lips. Nate’s breathing and the hand in his hair was his guide as he sought out places that made Nate’s breath hitch and his grip change involuntarily. 

“You know, I really didn’t expect this from you. Maybe I should have, huh?” Nate babbled. Eliot rolled his eyes. They’d already _had_ this conversation. But Nate couldn’t let go of his mistakes that easily, Eliot supposed.

“Yeah, you probably should have. Sophie figured me out quick,” Eliot lifted his mouth long enough to say. He was distracted, or else he would have known better than to mention Sophie and expect Nate to shut up. That was his excuse and he was sticking to it.

“She did?” Nate’s tone was light, and he was still responsive to Eliot’s touch, but Eliot could tell the lightness was forced. He pulled his lips off Nate’s neck again with a sigh. 

“Considering she asked me if I wanted to see what kinky shit you kept under your bed? Yeah.” He stared Nate in the eye as he said it to drive home his point. Nate swallowed. Eliot’s lips twitched. 

“Did you ah,” Nate’s hand spasmed in his hair. “Did you take her up on it?” 

Eliot just smirked, a silent ‘ _Wouldn’t you like to know?_ ’ before he lowered his mouth back to Nate’s jaw and neck, hunting out the space over Nate’s carotid artery. Nate’s breath froze in his throat, and Eliot would have been concerned if he couldn’t feel Nate’s hips arch against his thigh.

“It’s not that kinky, you know.” Nate defended, when he took another breath. Eliot ignored him, but Nate kept going. “I think any guy has a right to have cuffs under his bed. Especially guys in our line of work. And if you’re gonna spring for it, it might as well be the good stuff, right? Same for everything else. And it’s not like she has any right to complain about toys.” Eliot halfway wanted to know more, but also definitely didn’t. It was enough to know Nate kept cuffs under his bed, he didn’t want to be distracted on jobs wondering if Nate was wearing a butt plug or some shit too. “So really, I don’t think either one of you has room to throw stones about what is or is not under there.” Jesus, was Nate still talking? Eliot tried to tune it out and hoped if he could just find the right use of his lips, he’d get Nate to quiet down. So far it wasn’t working.

It might have taken a bit for the penny to drop, but once it did; “Me kissing anywhere but your mouth means you think you get to talk, doesn’t it?” Eliot lifted his lips to ask, torn between amusement and frustration.

“Something like that.” Nate sounded wholly unrepentant, though he did loosen his grip in Eliot’s hair to instead comb his fingers through it in a way that felt much too nice for Eliot’s vague irritation with the man. 

“Hmm.” Eliot pushed back up on his hands and knees to look at Nate, before shifting his weight to free one hand, even if it meant pressing down harder on his other where it still pinned Nate’s right arm. 

With his right hand free, Eliot laid it gently over Nate’s mouth. Those sharp blue eyes widened, and Eliot smirked. He’d be more concerned, but Nate’s free hand made no move to try to fight him off. No, instead he just pulled Eliot’s hair again, and his dick twitched against his belly, thickening further. _‘Green light.’_

“Don’t talk. Don’t think. Just _feel_.” It was supposed to be sexy, but even with his hand over Nate’s mouth he could tell Nate was laughing at him. “What?” he asked in a growl, pulling that hand away.

“Yeah, that’s great in theory, except I’m a very mental fuck,” Eliot carefully didn’t snort in Nate’s face at the joke that wrote itself behind his eyes, though he knew his lips twitched anyway, “and if I’m not thinking, I’m not really getting off.” Nate’s fingers switched to toying with Eliot’s hair instead of pulling it.

Eliot didn’t buy that, but he could buy that the mental aspect of things was important to Nate. “Yeah? Then think about this. I know every accessible nerve cluster on the human body.” Eliot let his voice get deep, dark. “I know how to hurt them.” A beat. “But I _also_ know how to make them feel good.” 

Nate raised a mocking eyebrow, but Eliot had seen him shiver. “What, even the parotid lymph node?” 

“Behind the ear? Are you even trying?” Eliot scoffed.

“Okay, okay.” Nate pressed his lips together to hide his smile. “What about the brachial plexus or the biceps?” 

“Uh-huh.” Eliot agreed, then shook his head in amusement and sat back on his heels. Nate’s hand sliding out of his hair was unfortunate, but the fact that Nate then tucked that free hand behind his head was utterly, infuriatingly attractive. A show of submission and cocky, controlling confidence in one. You had to hand it to the guy. Not a lot of people could pull off that look and mean it. Eliot let go of Nate’s other wrist so he had both hands free. Nate simply pillowed his head on that other hand too. _In_ credible.

Leaning forward, Eliot ran the right delicately down the soft skin over the dip between Nate’s exposed left bicep and tricep muscles. As his fingers neared Nate’s armpit, Nate shivered more visibly and shifted his weight higher up the bed, biting his lower lip and making a muffled noise in his throat. Eliot’s eyes crinkled up at the corners in amusement, but he kept his own mouth shut. After a second, Nate’s squirming subsided into something more pliant, less ticklish, as his body recategorized the sensation. At least, that was what Eliot figured had happened, since Nate’s dick twitched and the flush on his cheeks got deeper. 

“You know, you seem awfully sensitive here. You sure you weren’t just trying to drive me to one of your erogenous zones?” Eliot asked, a hint of a laugh in his voice. 

Nate hummed at him irritably. 

“No? Oh.” Eliot teased, as though he hadn’t known. “Want me to stop?” He scraped the nails of his other hand against a different cluster of nerves on Nate’s thigh and watched Nate gasp. 

“Not particularly.” Nate admitted, and Eliot suddenly understood some of what Sophie saw in Nate. Being directly under the intensity of his eyes when they were that hungry? Tingles ran down Eliot’s spine. 

“Anywhere else you’d like me to experiment?” Eliot asked, though he already had some places in mind. He tracked the bob of Nate’s Adam's apple, slid his gaze up and to the left towards the cervical plexus. Yeah, he could probably get some good mileage out of that.

“Hm. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I thought you talked about getting handsy. So far, you’re the only one who’s done much touching.” Nate pointed out. He didn’t seem inclined to fix it, though, leaving his hands behind his head as Eliot continued to tease the vulnerable underside of his upper arm. 

“I disagree. You’ve done a fine job on my hair. And besides, this isn’t about me. I’m having _plenty_ of fun as it is.” It surprised Eliot a little with how true it was. Nate was handsome, sure, and Eliot knew and trusted him, but he hadn’t been harboring a crush or anything. What had started as sheer practicality was becoming way, way better than he’d expected. ‘ _Sex like prom night, my ass.’_ Maggie had been so full of shit about that. 

Nate’s eyes raked him over. “Prove it. Lose the jeans.” 

“You telling me what to do?” Eliot asked, mildly.

“No, no. Just… requesting.” Apparently Nate was enjoying this little game too. The twitch of his lips and the delicate emphasis Nate put on the word ‘requesting’ made that more than clear. Nate and his subtle comments and cryptic remarks, where tone and words came together to form the whole picture right under a mark’s nose. Good thing Eliot had mostly learned to read them. 

Eliot hummed deep in his chest. “If it’s a _request_...” He smirked, and slid off the bed to strip naked, briskly and efficiently. No point making a show of it, even if he could feel Nate’s eyes on him, tracking the bob of the solid boner Eliot was sporting when it came into view. Next he made short work of Nate’s shoes, freeing him from the cuffs of his pants at the same time. At Nate’s raised eyebrow, he shrugged. “Can’t have you falling asleep in your shoes.” And that was, after all, the goal here, no matter how distracted Eliot was getting with the sheer fun of seeing what made Nate tick in bed.

When they were both completely nude, Eliot crawled back up from the foot of the bed to settle down on top of Nate, left forearm braced on the bed to hold him up and his erection pressing into the space beside Nate’s own. Nate was further along the road than Eliot was, but not _that_ much. The hot, hard side of another cock against his own went a long way towards turning up the heat in the room. 

Nate’s indrawn breath said he was far from immune. “Better?” Eliot asked, raising his eyebrows. 

“Well, if you’re taking suggestions -” Nate started. Eliot knew that tone. Nate was being a dick on purpose. 

“I’m not. I take _requests_.” Eliot could be a dick right back. Nate didn’t seem to mind too much, because Eliot saw the right side of Nate’s mouth tick up at the corner before Nate stifled it. Nate also left his hands where they were, though Eliot had a feeling from the way Nate shifted that he wasn’t going to do so for long. Too damn restless. 

So Eliot shifted that bracing forearm up to pin one of Nate’s arms down at the wrist instead. The change in his support shifted his balance, meant he had to wrap a leg over one of Nate’s to counterbalance, but it also pressed their erections even more solidly against each other’s hipbones. Definitely win-win. Especially that muffled little noise Nate tried to keep behind his teeth. Eliot rolled his hips deliberately, focusing on his own breathing so he could hear it when Nate made that sound again, something short and breathless and rough. Oh yeah, this was _way_ more fun than listening to Nate complain for another hour. 

Eliot dropped his right elbow to the bed, palm lightly covering Nate’s mouth, watching Nate’s eyes for the green light. He needn’t have bothered, though, because the way Nate’s hips rocked up into his own at the gesture said a lot. The heat in Nate’s eyes and the smile Eliot could feel against his palm said even more. Eliot grinned at him, then lowered his head to Nate’s throat, digging his toes into the bed to maintain balance. 

He started with light kisses at Nate’s jugular, teasingly, before trailing down and back to the point of the triangle between the muscles of Nate’s neck, where several sensory nerves lay near the surface. There he opened his mouth to place a sucking kiss, and teased the skin with the tip of his tongue. Salt from the day’s sweat burst over Eliot’s palate, along with a faint chemical tang from Nate’s aftershave. But he could also feel each little hitch of Nate’s breath, practically taste the speed of his pulse. More, Nate had shifted his free leg to try to get a little traction, bending his knee and rocking his hips up against Eliot’s as much as he could. Eliot hummed his satisfaction against Nate’s skin, pressing harder with his hips to hold Nate still. The pressure against his dick was intense, even painful, but it was worth it. A whine edged Nate’s breathing - it wasn’t a whimper, not yet, but the idea that he could get Nate to whimper was… _God_. That alone was worth the price of admission, not that he was going to tell Nate that.

After a few minutes of persistently mapping the hot spots on Nate’s neck, still chasing that elusive whimper, Eliot pushed down harder on Nate’s wrist and lifted his head. He’d have expected Nate’s eyes to be closed, but they weren’t, at least not when Eliot got a look at them. For once, Nate didn’t look like he had enough coherency to be calculating anything. 

Eliot wasn’t going to bet that he wasn’t, but the man sure looked like someone had rung his bell once or twice. Sleep deprivation and arousal were apparently a good combo for a passive Nate, and Eliot wasn’t going to argue with that either. 

Of course, Nate’s eyes were clearing with every second Eliot spent looking, and so Eliot took his hand off Nate’s mouth and leaned forward again, this time covering Nate’s mouth with his own. Eliot kissed him slow and dirty. His now-freed right hand snuck south, and Eliot used his knees and toes to leverage room between their hips to give himself an opening. 

It wasn’t a whimper, but it was sure a nice groan when Eliot’s hand wrapped around both their cocks together. Eliot growled approvingly in response, closing his teeth gently on Nate’s lower lip and tracing it with the tip of his tongue even as he began to slowly jack their cocks. 

The hot slide of another erection against his own felt toe-curlingly good, even if it was a difficult angle and hard to keep a good grip on them both. Eliot revelled in the little hitches in Nate’s breathing, and the quiet little sounds Nate was _still_ trying to smother, damn him. Eliot released Nate’s lower lip from between his teeth, returning to slow, dragging kisses to lull Nate into relaxing further. _Then_ Eliot swiped his thumb over the sensitive head of Nate’s cock. Nate about choked on his own damn tongue with a moan, and his hips jerked as though he’d taken an electric shock. ‘ _Jackpot._ ’ 

Nate could clearly feel Eliot’s smile of triumph, because he bit Eliot’s lower lip in retaliation. 

Joke was on him, that felt good, and Eliot rumbled low in his chest. He rolled his hips against Nate’s even though it completely fucked up his hand’s rhythm. 

Eliot wouldn’t call what Nate was doing over the next few minutes “relaxing,” exactly, but he certainly wasn’t thinking about his problems, so that was a victory. And he definitely wasn’t _talking_. 

Except, for as good as his hand felt on both of them, Eliot could tell he wasn’t going to get there like this. Neither one of them. There was just no good way to grip both their dicks in one hand coherently enough to get a good rhythm going, not in this position. One dick or another kept escaping him, was at the wrong angle, or was held too tight. He could tell when Nate realized it too, because _there_ was the whimper, and a desperate little hitch of Nate’s hips. 

“-liot, El-” Nate started to repeat against Eliot’s lips, trying to lift his head off his hands. No doubt to call attention to what Eliot already knew.

“Shh,” Eliot mumbled into the kiss, as he made his decision. With a quiet hiss, he let go of his own cock and wrapped his hand fully around Nate’s. Nate’s head dropped back onto his hands, fast, breaking the kiss as his chin tipped back and arched to bare his throat at the sudden change in grip. 

And as painfully as his own dick was throbbing, it was worth it for that alone. 

Eliot took out some of his own ache on Nate’s neck, scraping his teeth along the muscles and biting at Nate’s left collarbone. Timing was good, too, because even with his mouth free now, Nate wasn’t doing much talking. Nothing coherent, anyway, and Eliot sure as hell wasn’t going to count the needy little noises, the ohs, yeses, or the occasional curse against him. Especially not since Eliot was doing his level best to draw them out, using his thumb to tease Nate’s cockhead every time his hand passed over it. His own breathing sounded loud and ragged in his ears, the air between the curtain of his hair and Nate’s throat getting hot and muggy from his breath. His dick ached between his legs, and he couldn’t help but rub against Nate’s hip in tiny thrusts, but god, it felt good, clean and easy in a way Eliot craved after something like 36 hours of wakefulness. Especially when he got the reward of Nate incoherent under him, letting _Eliot_ take charge and set the pace. 

The tension in Nate’s body was ratcheting higher and higher, and Eliot could feel him shaking. Wouldn’t be long now, and the thought made Eliot groan around where he was sucking an enthusiastic bruise into Nate’s shoulder. They both could have already cum if Eliot had gone for hard and fast right out of the gate, but he’d wanted Nate to sleep after, to relax. Besides, this had just seemed more fun, easier for all that it took more work. 

Nate’s back was bowed beneath him as much as their positions allowed, muttering out a litany of nonsense. The slick slide of Eliot’s hand got faster, more determined, until Nate hit the breaking point. 

Eliot felt Nate’s orgasm as a long exhalation of breath against his neck, a sudden relaxation in the muscles beneath him. The heat and wet against his hand was almost an afterthought, and Eliot gentled Nate through it before taking his hand away slowly so as not to disturb the obvious peace that had dropped over Nate like a blanket. By the time Eliot lifted his head, Nate’s eyes were closed and he seemed to be drifting towards sleep.

With a low sigh of his own, Eliot rolled off of Nate to lay face-up on the hotel duvet, tucking his left hand behind his head and wiping his right against the fabric beneath him. His dick still ached, and he half-wished for a good chance to get himself off, but it really wasn’t worth getting up for. Not now that Nate seemed to be out like a light, and the cool of the hotel air conditioning was doing a lot in the way of chilling his libido. Fuck, but it had been fun, though. And who knew Nate could let someone else take charge for a change?

Eliot carefully diverted his train of thought at that, because he’d been trying to get his erection to go down, not back up. Thinking of Nate’s willingness to let Eliot pin him down really didn’t help with that. Exhaling slowly, Eliot flexed his feet against the duvet and counted down from 200, regulating his breathing. By the time he hit zero, he was loose and pliant again, and his erection was gone. The warmth of the memory, however, was not, and that was helped along by the sound of Nate’s sleepy breathing beside him on the bed. He was definitely using this method of Nate-wrangling again in the future, if Nate let him. 

After a moment, deciding that Nate was deeply enough asleep to allow it, Eliot pulled the duvet from beneath himself, draping that half over Nate to keep him from waking up in the chill. That done, Eliot squirmed his way under the remaining sheets on his half of the bed, and let himself drift.

~*~*~  
Four hours later, Eliot was up, showered, dressed, and ready for the next flight. He’d even made a trip to the hotel restaurant and brought back a tray for Nate. His own meal had been decent, though clearly not cooked by anyone with passion.

Nate had cocooned himself thoroughly in that duvet, and Eliot nudged his foot. “Nate.” 

“Hrm?” Nate grumbled, clearly displeased with waking so soon after he’d gone to sleep. 

“Get up. Shower. I brought breakfast.” 

Nate blinked, clearly still trying to bring his brain online. There was trust in that, too, and Eliot knew it. A slow wake-up was a luxury, and that Nate trusted him enough to indulge was oddly touching. “Eliot?” Nate mumbled, struggling to disentangle himself from the blanket. 

“Yeah. Get up. We’ve got a flight.” Simple sentences were the key. That and the coffee Eliot picked up from the tray and waved under Nate’s nose. 

Nate reached for it, and then seemed to realize he was naked. “Uh, did we…” 

God, Nate was slow in the morning. Eliot let him have the cup; he obviously needed it. “Yeah. Hence why you need a shower.” 

Nate drank from the coffee like his life depended on it. And like it was the only thing keeping his mouth shut on some stupid comment. Eliot decided not to bother, digging in Nate’s carry-on suitcase to fish out clean clothes, which he dropped unceremoniously on top of the Nate cocoon. 

“You’ve got thirty minutes to get ready before we have to get to security for our flight. I suggest you make use of it.” He’d let Nate sleep late on purpose, partly because he needed it, and partly to keep things normal when Nate woke up. “I’ll meet you downstairs. I want to pick up some things in the Duty Free.” 

Nate finally lifted his face from the cup of coffee, looking more alert. “Did you ever - you know?” He sounded surprisingly concerned. Decent of him.

Eliot’s lips quirked at the corners, and he shook his head slightly. “Nah. Didn’t want to wake you.” 

“Oh.” Nate said, then looked down at his mug like it held the secrets of the universe. “You could have. Didn’t mean to leave you hanging.” Was that wounded pride? Probably. 

“Don’t worry about it. I was tired anyway,” Eliot assured him, scanning the room for anything he’d left or forgotten. Nothing. He grabbed his own bag by the strap.

“Still.” Oh, no. Was this going to be another thing Nate just couldn’t let go?

”Make it up to me later.” Eliot told him off-handedly, hefting his bag over his shoulder. “We’ve got a flight to catch.” Anything to get out of this conversation.

He missed the way Nate watched him, already thinking of how to do just that.


End file.
